Constant - New Babylon, in October in the Reina Sofía museum

Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys was born in Amsterdam on July 21, 1920, the first child of Pieter Nieuwenhuijs and Maria Cornelissen. Later, he chose to write his surname with a “y,” as Nieuwenhuys, perhaps due to his international connections. In 1922, his brother Jan was born, and after attending Gerardus Majella primary school, he continued his secondary education at Sint Ignatius College. His artistic vocation led him in 1938 to the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs and, shortly after, to the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. At a very young age, he became independent, first settling in a studio on Eerste Sweelinckstraat and later in Bergen, where in 1942 he married Matie van Domselaer. The couple had three children: Victor, Martha, and Olga, although the war forced them to move back and forth between Bergen and Amsterdam.

In 1946, during a Miró exhibition in Paris, he met Asger Jorn, a decisive encounter that gave rise to the Dutch Experimental Group. That same year, his second daughter was born, and he moved with his family into a studio on Plantage Franschelaan in Amsterdam. Shortly after, Karel Appel and Corneille joined his circle, and together they founded the magazine Reflex and, in 1948, the CoBrA group, an avant-garde movement that sought to liberate artistic expression from all academicism. Constant’s personal life, however, went through turmoil: in 1949, Matie left him for Jorn, and a year later, they divorced.

In 1951, he married Nellie Riemens, with whom he had a daughter, Eva, and together they formed an extended family with his son Victor and Nellie’s son. They settled in Paris, where Constant came into contact with an international artistic environment, even residing in England on a scholarship from the British Art Council. Together with Stephen Gilbert and Nicolas Schöffer, he founded the group Néovision, which was soon dissolved. In 1956, he travelled to Alba, Italy, invited by Jorn, where he presented his ideas about the relationship between poetry and life, a prelude to his reflections on the city and society.

His theoretical commitment intensified when, in 1958, he joined the Situationist International, from which he developed his New Babylon project, a vision of a future city for Homo Ludens, the human being liberated through creativity and play. His lectures at universities, museums, and congresses in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Denmark consolidated his role as a central figure in the debate on urbanism and the artistic avant-garde. Meanwhile, his personal life went through new stages: after divorcing Nellie in 1960, he married Nel Kerkhoven in 1961, a relationship that lasted until the late 1970s.

The New Babylon cycle culminated in its presentation at the Venice Biennale of 1966, where he received the Premio Cardazzo. Over time, however, he returned to painting, developing a colourist period that marked his later years. The art critic Fanny Kelk, with whom he maintained a deep relationship until she died in 1978, was crucial in that transition. In the following years, Constant received recognition for his entire career, such as the David Röell Prize in 1974, the Singer Prize in 1985, the Resistance Prize in 1991, and the Oeuvreprijs in 1994.

In 1997, he married Trudy van der Horst, with whom he shared the final years of his life and the publication of books that widely disseminated his work. Throughout his career, he wrote, drew, projected, and tirelessly reflected on art, freedom, and the city, leaving a legacy that went beyond the limits of painting to influence urban and social thought. Constant passed away on August 1, 2005, in Utrecht, at home with Trudy, closing a life marked by the ceaseless pursuit of creative freedom, which he always linked to the future of humanity.